The spot was part of the "Darkcasting" online advertising campaign for Lexus that also took Cummings to New York, San Francisco and Chicago.

Prime time times two is her current destination, a vector perhaps not predictable based on her resume.

A standup comic who made a name for herself with appearances on "Punk'd," E!'s "Chelsea Lately" and an outrageous podium turn on a David Hasselhoff TV roast, she scored a 2010 standup special on Comedy Central.

Now's she's scored the rarest of successes for a performer: Two TV sitcoms, on two different networks, both debuting in the new fall season.

Cummings made a rare double-dip appearance at the Summer TV Tour to promote both shows.

(Kevin Dillon also made two trips to the ballroom Q&A stage, first with the departing "Entourage," then his new CBS sitcom "How to Be a Gentleman.")

At both of Cummings' interview sessions, time-management questions were inevitable.

"Do you not see the bags under my eyes, sir?" said Cummings.

The acting role on the NBC show is the one Cummings spends her days on.

"And at home I’ll sort of read the notes from '2 Broke Girls,' but I
think it’s in pretty good hands with Michael Patrick King," she said. "I’m not too
worried about it. We talk all the time, and the show is doing great."

King had a rough idea for "2 Broke Girls" when he found Cummings to write with him and help flesh out the idea.

The show stars Kat Dennings ("Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist") and comparative newcomer Beth Behrs as waitresses from different backgrounds who bond to pursue life together in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood on the cheap.

"When I thought of doing a show called '2 Broke Girls,' I
wanted it to be as contemporary and as edgy as I believe two broke girls
would be today if they were living in Williamsburg," King said. "So the first person
I was looking for was a really smart, funny writer with a really hard
comedy edge. And so I did my, quote/unquote, Scarlett O’Hara search for
the female writer that had what I needed. And a lot of great writers
were there, but really no one had everything that Whitney has, which is
she’s smart, she’s incredibly ambitious, (has) great discipline and thinks
like a writer, and writes really hard jokes like a standup.

"So once I
knew it was Whitney, I really wanted everything that she
has. But primarily because we were doing it in front of a live audience,
it was really important to both Whitney and I that we had jokes that
made an audience laugh because we wanted to do a show that was actually
proven by an audience rather than edited in a comedy way in an editing
room."

"Thank you, Diablo Cody, for being unavailable," Cummings added. "Michael’s work kind of formed me as a
person. When I get emails from him in my email box, I tell
him I get butterflies in my stomach. It’s still surreal."

The same state of being describes Cummings' dual-series career at the moment.

"Yeah, it’s all just surreal," she said. "It’s funny. I was joking the other day about how my real life feels like a TV show and my TV life feels real, because to be on Thursday nights on NBC, which is what I grew up with and has been such a big part of inspiring me -- you know, 'Mad About You' and 'Seinfeld' and 'The Cosby Show' -- to be a part of that tradition is really completely surreal, and I’m so grateful."

It's a surreal swirl, no doubt.

So at an end-of-the-day CBS stars party, I got a chance to ask Cummings her memories of the time when she was doing car commercials on the Internet and got to hang with Kermit Ruffins.

"He is so amazing," she said. "I got to spend a couple of hours with him driving around New Orleans, and it was so amazing because we couldn't drive 10 feet without people rushing the car, trying to get in the car. Everybody knew Kermit. It was like driving around with Brad Pitt.

"I remember he was playing the trumpet out the window. I was really honored to spend time in New Orleans." Below, the Lexus commercial:

Dave Walker can be reached at dwalker@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3429. Read more TV coverage at NOLA.com/tv. Follow him at twitter.com/davewalkertp.